At the two-minute mark in his Wednesday night monologue on TBN, Mike Huckabee prognosticated, “If these tactics (i.e. a ‘weaponized’ judicial system persecuting God’s anointed man) end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.”
Right Wing theocrats and MAGA Church members now routinely decry the U.S. becoming a “banana republic”, the “weaponization” of law enforcement and the judicial system against Conservatives. They are warning followers about the perceived rapid descent of the U.S, into an authoritarian banana republic. Writer Peter Montgomery says, “Huckabee’s comments are a classic example of right-wing propagandists’ tactic of accusing others of what they themselves are doing—or are planning to do if they get power.”
It is no conspiratorial secret to say that a significant segment of the Religious Right, are openly broadcasting their desire for a new civil war. Of course, when directly challenged about this dangerous rhetoric, they either dismiss the charge as ridiculous or complain that the Leftist Deep State is manipulating their comments.
Dominionist host Stew Peters said on his show in August about his political opponents, “They have taken over a country. They have affected a Marxist coup d’état. These are the real insurrectionists who have committed sedition… The judiciary has failed us. The legal process has failed us. The voting process has failed us… So, I think that right now what Americans need to be exploring is our extra-legal options“.
MAGA prophet Johnny Enlow, a contributor to Charisma News, has said “[Trump] is the number one kingdom asset for government on planet Earth and has been. That has not changed. And just because there’s a stealing of an election, his influence is so powerful—I don’t think people understand that if he really was panicked about us losing [the country] … he would be justified in calling for a revolution and saying, ‘We have to fight for my kids and for my kids’ kids’ sake, we have to be willing [to fight].”
Henry Hastings, a former special forces commander and the founder of the paramilitary Christian org Shoot Move Communicate, says God specifically anointed him to raise up a generation of “modern-day Minutemen” who would have the tactical skills to “overtake and destroy those who would threaten freedom.” On Enlow’s program he recently said, “The federal government is now becoming an enemy of ‘We The People. And when we have elections where people have not been legally or lawfully elected, we have domestic enemies in office and our Constitution gives us the authority to remove them.”
John Zmirak, senior editor of popular televangelist James Robison’s magazine The Stream, has repeatedly and emphatically urged his readers to meet up at gun ranges and start their own self-styled militias. Democrats, he claims– who appear to be controlling literally everything in the country at the moment– are using the Nazi playbook to seize power. He likens Christians who lean Left (which in his worldview could simply be someone who opposes Trump), as “Marxist-inspired radicals” and “TUMORS on the Body of Christ”. The Stream, in case you weren’t aware, is marketed as a mainstream, conservative media outlet for an ecumenical audience. Robison has for decades branded himself as the grandfatherly, conservative pastor who stands for old-fashioned biblical values and simply loves America.
Even more “moderate” voices like John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute; one of the most respected legacy cranks of the Reagan era, has said ““The republic has fallen. The Deep State’s plot to take over America has succeeded… We are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war.”
At what point does these chest-thumping sermons about taking up arms against the satanic Deep State, become a real-time, self-fulfilling prophecy?
